Female entrepreneur who founded GoCompare website on her kitchen table just eight years ago is set for £44million payday 

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Hayley Parsons, the founder of insurance comparison website GoCompare is to net £44m by selling her stake in the successful business 

Eight years ago, Hayley Parsons sat at her kitchen table and sketched out a plan for a price comparison website.

Today, the married mother-of-two is £44million richer after selling her shares in the company, GoCompare – best known for its adverts featuring ear-splitting opera singer Wynne Evans.

The 41-year-old, from Cwmbran, South Wales, left school with six GCSEs and dreamed of becoming an interior designer. If she had succeeded, she says ‘today all the houses in the UK could be covered in animal print’.

Instead, she took a job in a small insurance firm, where she made cups of tea and did basic admin.

In her late twenties, she moved to Cardiff-based Admiral insurance where she worked in sales, and later helped launch the first UK motor insurance comparison site, Confused.com - the first car insurance comparison site in the UK. 

But after 14 years, Mrs Parsons – whose motto is ‘well-behaved women seldom make history’ – quit the firm and set up a rival site, a move she admits was ‘scary’.

She and two former colleagues from Admiral worked from her kitchen table, later moving to premises where staff had to build their own Ikea desks.

Her husband Mark gave up his job as a sales and marketing director to care for their two sons – aged four and 11 – when the company began to expand.

Mrs Parsons was an unconventional boss, coming in dressed up as a devil on Halloween and setting up an office relaxation room, complete with a football table, a PlayStation and a Wii.

Her company grew rapidly, and she was soon chief executive of a multi-million pound corporation. Last year GoCompare reported sales of £110million and pre-tax profits of £25million.

Car insurance firm esure has owned half of GoCompare since 2010, when it exercised an option taken out in 2007 to buy a stake in the business.

It bought the rest of the business in a £95million deal yesterday, including Mrs Parsons’ 23 per cent remaining stake.

Ms Parsons wanted to employ a Welsh opera singer to star in television adverts for GoCompare

It had valued the businesswoman's 23 per cent stake at around £44m.

She sold it and stepped down as chief executive on the condition that the firm would keep the headquarters in South Wales. Mrs Parsons – who lives in an £840,000 five-bedroom home in Old St Mellons, near Cardiff – is now one of the richest businesswomen in Britain.

'I am very proud that a company I started at my kitchen table eight years ago has achieved so much in such a short period of time,' said Mrs Parsons.

'Today, we are a leading price comparison business in the UK and this is credit to all the wonderful, hard-working people we have in Newport.' 

She added that she has ‘done all right for a Welsh girl from the Valleys’. And she admitted that she had been lucky to have had the complete support of her husband, before joking: ‘I call him a house husband, and he calls himself a man of leisure, so we have debates over his job description.’

But despite her success, she says she does not live a champagne lifestyle and ‘can’t stand some of the people I meet in the business world, who think they’re important just because they’ve got money or they’ve got power or they’ve got a big title’.

Ms Parsons set up the business in 2006 and it has become known for its adverts featuring an opera singer 

She said: ‘I meet so many people in business who just get stuck up their own backsides and that’s not me at all.’

And when she was previously asked if she had ever faced challenges as a woman in business, she said: ‘I think that some women become transfixed with the “glass ceiling”.

‘I’ve always thought that if you believe there is a glass ceiling, you’ll spend your life on the floor looking up at it.’

 As well as Ms Parsons, other selling shareholders in today's deal include GoCompare's employee benefit trust and current and former directors and staff.

Jon Morrell, who is esure's deputy chief operating officer, will take over from Ms Parsons as GoCompare's chief executive.

She added that esure's commitment to keep GoCompare's headquarters in Newport was an 'extremely important' part of her decision to sell the business.

The deal, which is subject to Competition and Markets Authority approval, is expected to complete in the first quarter of next year.

Find out more about Chwarae Teg here. 

FROM PLANS ON THE KITCHEN TABLE TO A COMPANY WORTH £195M: HOW ENTREPRENEUR HAYLEY PARSONS BECAME A MILLIONAIRE 

Hayley Parsons was born in Cwmbran and grew up in the Valleys in Wales. 

She left Croesyceiliog comprehensive school in Wales at the age of 16 with five GCSEs.

According to a recent Sunday Times Rich list the self-confessed 'Welsh girl from the Valleys' is now estimated to be worth around £95m.

Ms Parsons lives in Rogerstone in Newport with her partner Mark and has two children, aged four and 11. She lives just a few miles from where she grew up in Cwmbran in a £840,000 five-bedroom home.

The couple met in 2001 and as GoCompare took off, Mark quit his job as the sales and marketing director of a busy printing firm to stay at home with their eldest son.

Speaking in 2010, she said: 'I call him a house husband, he calls himself a man of leisure, so we have debates over his job description.'

In 1992 Ms Parsons got a job in sales at Cardiff-based insurer Admiral where she was to work for the next 14 years. During this time she quickly rose up the ranks.

When she was 21 she helped set up an insurance broker called Gladiator and then was instrumental in the launch of the first car insurance comparison website, Confused.com by Admiral. 

In 2006 she left the company as she had always dreamed of running her own business and wanted to make a site that functioned better for customers.

Ms Parsons then worked with a small team of two which grew to six to design GoCompare. 

She is known as a good networker and met a contact who offered £1.5m to invest in the fledgling business.  

Ms Parsons was awarded an OBE in 2012 

They moved into their own premises with a team of 20 who had to put their own Ikea desks together before Ms Parsons was forced to move the office again as the team grew to more than 70 people. 

In just eight years the company grew to employ around 200 people and was recently valued as being worth almost £195m.

Ms Parsons worked with her team to come up with the idea of having Gio Compario for the adverts and wanted to employ a Welsh singer so chose Wynne Evans.  

In return for loyalty from her employees Ms Parsons has kitted out her offices with a relaxation room, complete with a Wii, Playstation and football table. 

GoCompare functions by listing insurance by the level of cover provided, rather than by the cheapest price.  

The site was invited to join the British Insurance Brokers Association (BIBA) in 2008. It is so popular it now provides a quote every second. 

The businesswoman was made an honorary fellow of the University of Newport in 2011.  

In 2012 Ms Parsons was awarded an OBE for services to the economy. During the same year Gocompare.com was awarded the Investors in People 'Gold' award.

Earlier this year she was appointed to the Entrepreneurship Panel for Wales. 

Following speculation in recent years that Ms Parsons would sell the company she has referred to it as 'my baby.' 

Ms Parsons, now 41, said her staff were very important to her and a key part of the decision to sell was that the business would remain in Wales.